Guidelines

Information for Students

These ideas were contributed by our developers and users. They are sometimes vague or incomplete. If you wish to submit a proposal based on these ideas, you may wish to contact the developers and find out more about the particular suggestion you're looking at.

Being accepted as a Google Summer of Code student is quite competitive. Accepted students typically have thoroughly researched the technologies of their proposed project and have been in frequent contact with potential mentors. Simply copying and pasting an idea here will not work. On the other hand, creating a completely new idea without first consulting potential mentors is unlikely to work out.

When writing your proposal or asking for help from the general KDE community don't assume people are familiar with the ideas here. KDE is really big!

If there is no specific contact given you can ask questions on the general KDE development list kde-devel@kde.org. See the KDE mailing lists page for information on available mailing lists and how to subscribe.

Adding a Proposal

When adding an idea to this section, please try to include the following data:

if the application is not widely known, a description of what it does and where its code lives

a brief explanation

the expected results

pre-requisites for working on your project

if applicable, links to more information or discussions

mailing list or IRC channel for your application/library/module

your name and email address for contact (if you're willing to be a mentor)

If you are not a developer but have a good idea for a proposal, get in contact with relevant developers first.

Ideas

Plasma

Project: Generic SOAP Plasma::Service

Brief explanation:
The Service should be able to parse WSDL files and let Plasmoids connect to the described Webservices.

Project: Simple Media Center components

Brief explanation:
Plasma could offer a Media center mode, where features a really simple ui to browse media files and plasmoids that shows the actual media. All should be operable with mouse, keyboard or a simple remote control. the work could consist in building the whole thing or just writing a plasmoid able to browse media files, that is the most important missing part.
Mockups for it by Nuno Pinheiro can be seen here and here

Expected results:
An applet to browse and thumbnail media files, like the first mockup and control the actual media viewing applets, like the media player applet or the picture frame applet. At this stage the functionality will be really minimum

Mentor:
Marco Martin (notmart a gmail dot org), or other Plasma developers. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Plasmate

Brief explanation:
PlasMate is an application that gives people a way to start creating scripted plasmoids without worrying about anything except making their bits. It hides the whole metadata.desktop thing, the package layout details, making a Plasmoid package (aka "zipping up the directory"), uploading content and version control system.

Expected results:
Working application that one can do the tasks described above, making it easy to create and distribute a scripted plasmoid.

Mentor:
Artur Duque de Souza (morpheuz a gmail dot org), or other Plasma developers. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Qt Kinetic + Plasma

Brief explanation:
A layer over Qt Kinetic to provide a standardized set of "out of the box"
animations and bring them into libplasma. The work will be done with the Plasma developers to make this API as efficient as possible. The work will be based on Kinetic, the next framework for animations in Qt.

Expected results:
We can kill Plasma::Animator class. The goal is to bring fancy effects/animations in Plasma to have one of the best desktop ever.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++, familiarity with QGraphicsView related classes and some familiarity with animations bits.

Project: Eduactional layout

Brief explanation:
A set of Containments and Plasmoids specifically designed for primary school
students.

Expected results:
A simplified panel containment that contains basic launchers and user feedback
for the student, a widget that allows teachers to provide context-specific
sets of applications and documents to the student (context being a combination
of the student logged in and the current class subject), a widget that
provides some basic teacher->student communication and status (e.g. what the
current assignment is, how long the student has been logged in, etc) and
optionally some widgets that work with KDE edu apps.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Desktop dock

Brief explanation:
A MacOS style dock containment.

Expected results:
A containment that provides a similar user experience to the MacOS dock:
application launchers that are also task bar entries when the application is
active and a separate area for widgets such as the trash, battery, etc.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Kdm frontend using plasma

Expected results:
A KDM screen that is rendered completely using Plasma. This means both using
libplasma in KDM for the log in screen as well as writing Plasmoids for
entering the user name and password, listing users, session switching, etc.
Some of these widgets already exist for the desktop shell, so in some cases
this will be simply integrating existing Plasmoids, but in other cases will
mean writing new ones from the ground up.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Raptor

Brief explanation:
Raptor aims to deliver a new kind of launch menu system for KDE. It is designed with usability and beauty in mind.
Raptor-Menu does not try to be the final answer to the menu question, instead aspires to be the best answer we can give, merging many ideas form modern desktop launch menus.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: New Widget Explorer

Brief explanation:
A new widget explorer that supports both our own widgets as well as others
more seamlessly.

Expected results:
A usable and pretty browser for widgets that allows a user to see an icon or
snapshot of the widget, select a widget to be placed in a containment, search
for a widget based on name/description, sort the widgets into categories, rate
widgets and provide ways to launch the online browsers and installers for both
native Plasmoids as well as third party tools such as Google Gadgets (which is
already supported in the Package class). All the required support
functionality already exists, this project is really about creating a
beautiful and dynamic user interface for looking through a widget catalog that
looks "Plasma".

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: D-Bus Interface

Brief explanation:
A comprehensive set of D-Bus interfaces for the plasma-desktop Plasma shell.

Expected results:
The D-Bus interface must provide access to the Corona (DestkopCorona class),
which in turn will list all existing Containments and allow Containments to be
added, removed, saved, etc.

A D-Bus interface for each existing Containment will be made available as
well, which will provide a standard set of tools including listing, adding and
removing widgets as well as positioning and sizing for PanelContaiments. Ways
to control the wallpaper, if any, will also be provided in the per-Containment
D-Bus interface.

In turn, a D-Bus interface for each widget representing its available
contextual actions will be provided dynamically upon request.

Finally, the application D-Bus interface for things such as locking/unlocking
widgets will be designed and implemented.

The result will be a Plasma that is fully accessible via D-Bus.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Project: Security

Brief explanation:
A set of methods to define the existing security state of the Plasma
application, the security requirements of individual widgets, mechanisms to
respect those two sets of information and cryptographic signing of Plasmoid
packages.

Expected results:
A set of functionality descriptions will be enumerated (e.g. "Network access",
"Local file system access", etc.). Individual widgets will advertise which of
these functionality sets they require.

The plasma-overlay shell (used on the screensaver) will have code added to it
to respect these settings and not run widgets that advertise they need things
that aren't safe to provide on a screensaver (due to it being locked to
prevent others from accessing the system).

The plasma-desktop shell will gain the ability to be put into various lock down
states which will map to different sets of functionality. Part of this project
will be enumerate the various states, but that list must include "only load
trusted widgets", "no external access", "no local file system access".

The JavaScript engine will provide methods for each of the functionality sets
(e.g. a set of functions to access local files) which will be exported or not
based on the current Security state. This implies providing a security state
to the Corona which can then be passed on down to Applets and AppletScripts.

Finally, GPG signing of Plasmoid packages will be implemented along with a way
of checking the validity of these at runtime.

Knowledge prerequisite:
Knowledge of C++ and some experience with security.

Mentor:
Plasma team. Contact at plasma-devel@kde.org or #plasma on freenode.

Amarok

Project: DLNA/UPnP Support

Brief explanation:
Using the UPnP protocol users can, for example, share music from their Vista computer to a PS3. Amarok lacks any sort of UPnP support. Being able to act as a client or possibly a UPnP media server would be useful. In addition to that controlling a UPnP Media Renderer from within Amarok is possible with framework support.

The Coherence server would likely be used since it is also intended to be used by a KIO slave.

Expected results:

Using the Amarok Collection framework, create a plugin which allows Amarok to browse, search and play music off of a UPnP share. Playing music may use the UPnP KIO-slave, but more advanced functionality requires Amarok to handle this directly.

Allow Amarok to share it's collection with other devices or control other devices via UPnP. This is secondary priority but it may be pretty easy with Coherence.

Material Prerequisite: Some UPnP devices or computers to test with. Good excuse to buy a PS3. If you live in Europe a Philips Streamium DMR can be borrowed.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Coherence uses Python and D-Bus but doesn't need to be hacked on in the scope of this project.

And of course, understanding of UPnP networking and devices wouldn't hurt!

Mentor: Stecchino (bart.cerneels at kde dot org)

Project: New meta-applets for the Context View

Brief Explanation:
The Context View (CV) is currently used to display multiple applets that expose various information. However, due to the fact that each applet displays a certain type of information from one data source, there is significant amount of wasted space, and it is hard to show much more than 3 different pieces of data at once.

Meta-Applets are large applets that integrate date from multiple data sources in order to display more semantically related information coherently and efficiently. This could mean, for example, an applet that brings together lyrics, artist info, upcoming concerts, and related songs/artists.

Project: Code regression test suite, implemented with QtScript

Brief explanation:
Amarok currently has no automatic code regression testing ("unit testing") in place at all. We very much need such a system in place (for as many components as possible), as we sometimes accidentally break certain components of the program by extending the code.

Expected results:
Code regression test suite for Amarok 2, implemented as one "Amarok-Script" (JavaScript), and internally split into multiple separate files and components, so that it would be possible to run arbitray tests (or the full suite) with very little effort, and no compiling, at any time. A requirement would also be testing of the collection scanning code (with test case collections), and testing of GUI correctness with the QTest library.

Project: Multilevel playlist sorting and sorting GUI

Brief explanation:
In Amarok 2.1, the layout of the playlist will be very configurable, being able to show as much or as little information about each track as each user might wish. Currently however, it is lacking an advanced system for sorting in the playlist, something that many users comming from Amarok 1 are missing. While simple sorting is relatively easy to do (and has already been partly implemented) we would like to aim a bit higher with Amarok 2.

Expected results:
A proxy model allowing the tracks in the playlist to be sorted using an arbitrary number of "layered" sort criteria. for instance, a sort setup could be "artist-album-tracknumber" This would sort all tracks by artist, then sort the tracks from each artist by album, and finally the tracks from each album based on track number. Once this model is working, a GUI is needed for making this functionality easilly avaialble to the user. Ideally this gui should tie in well with the playlist layout and search/filter stuff. Also, all track navigators (the classes that determines the order of playback, such as normal, random, random album and so on) need to be updated to use and work correctly with the new proxy model.

Project: Playlist and Collection synchronization

Brief explanation:
Mediadevices and services can add tracks and playlists to Amarok. Synchronization would automatically copy over tracks between the main Amarok Collection and devices or services or even between each other, either for a single playlist or the complete collection.
An algorithm needs to be implemented that does this automatically in a fast and efficient way with minimal intervention needed by the user.

Expected results:
Playlists set up on both the local collection and a portable mediaplayer will get synchronized the moment the player is connected.

Phonon

Project: Analyzer Support

Brief explanation:
Applications such as Amarok and Dragon Player cannot have an analyzer or visualizations since they use Phonon which does not yet have the functionality to do it. The analyzer is the little bar graph thing which bounces around while music is playing. Users like it as its pretty and gives them a visual indication of their music playing.

Expected results:
As this project is working on extending a library, it has three parts: the Phonon library itself, a Phonon backend, and an application. The Phonon library would need the new API calls. At least phonon-xine and preferably 1 or 2 other Phonon backends must then implement the new API. An application like Amarok or Dragon Player should be used to demonstrate the use of the new API.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Experience with Xine or GStreamer is probably useful.

Mentor: Ian Monroe (contact on the Amarok mailing list) or possibly another Amarok or Phonon developer.

Marble

Project: Satellite navigation

Brief explanation:
Satellite navigation devices have become widely used and the quality of openstreetmap data is becoming high, with some cities completely mapped already. Providing satellite navigation would be a useful desktop app for many as well as adding appeal for the use of KDE in embedded devices.

It also opens the possibility to bringing many of the free software ideals to interaction with the real world such as collaborative/social POIs.

Expected results:
The project would aim at getting a basic satellite navigation application running. The most basic features required would be getting the current location from a GPS device and providing route calculation to a destination.

The AndNav project (http://andnav.org) has already achieved something similar for Android so it could be a point of reference for how to use OpenStreetMap data to achieve this.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Experience with GPS devices under linux would be beneficial. Knowing java may also be of benefit in order to study the AndNav implementation.

Mentor: I (Alan Jones, skyphyr using gmail) am willing to mentor, but not having any GPS or Marble experience there is most likely somebody far more suited to undertake this role.

Comment from a Marble Project guy: Alan, please get in touch with the Marble Project. Our mailing list is marble-devel@kde.org. We'd like to support this project if a student is willing to do it.

Project: Add Time support to Marble

Brief explanation:
Wouldn't it be great to be able to see the world at different times in Marble? Like having a slider which would give you the ability to browse through the time? Marble's internal datastructure is modelled after KML. But support for time-related tags is missing.

Expected results:

Having a GUI on the map and as a QWidget based dialog which allows people to "slide" through time.

Implementation of the KML <TimePrimitive> and <TimeSpan> tag: Creating the KML-handler and needed data classes for the GeoData parser.

Having a central "internal" clock which the current view would be based on.

Porting existing features (like the starry sky and the sun shading) over to the new class design.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Knowledge about KML is not necessary but would be appreciated.

Mentor: Torsten Rahn / Patrick Spendrin.

KDevelop

KDE-based Integrated Development Environment, specializing in c++ support, but including a powerful generic framework (definition use chain) which makes it possible to relatively easily support multiple different languages.

Project: C++ Refactoring Support

Brief explanation:
C++ support in KDevelop is already highly advanced, often equalling or surpassing what the user and compiler understand about the code. A few refactoring tools have been developed already, but they have been constructed in a crude fashion, generating code via string concatenation.

This project would aim to create a new system to implement refactoring tools, and to create, test and deploy several advanced refactoring tools for c++.

Expected results:
A library would be created to enable refactoring based on the c++ AST (abstract syntax tree). A reverse parser (AST to code) already exists, but classes would be created to allow programatic manipulation of an AST. Optionally this library would also cover a generic framework based on the duchain which would be re-usable by other languages and make refactoring plugins easier to develop and partially shareable between languages.

KStars

KStars is a Desktop Planetarium for KDE. It displays a map of the sky and provides a lot of tools to learn astronomy, or to calculate and predict astronomical phenomena. See [KStars Homepage] for more information.

Project: Community Integration for KStars

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE.

Brief explanation: Amateur Astronomy (which is one of the important use-cases of KStars) is typically done in communities. KStars permits users to save their own observing logs. It would be nicer if the user could share his observing logs with other users and see other observers' logs within KStars. It would also be nice if KStars had a map (using MarbleWidget) to display various Astronomy-related establishments (like amateur associations, observatories, research institutes). Another possible idea could be an observing report generator that would generate a report based on observing logs, and at the user's will, share it / post it on the internet.

Expected results: Implement some features that will make it easier for users to collaborate, as suggested above.

Project: FITS Image Overlay on the sky map.

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE.

Brief explanation: It would be great if a FITS image could be overlayed on the sky map so that the field drawn by KStars could be compared with the field in the FITS image. This would be of great benefit to observational astronomers, astrophotographers and comet / asteroid observers. An extension would be to download a DSS image using KStars' already existing tool and map it onto the sky map. The support of shapes like ds9 region, annotations on the sky, etc. could also be added.

Expected results: Functionality to overlay a FITS image or a DSS image obtained through KStars on to the sky map.

Project: Tools for Eclipses

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE. Currently, it can predict Solar Eclipses (using the Conjunctions tool), but cannot plot trajectory of shadows, or predict Lunar Eclipses.

Brief explanation: The project's primary goals are to include simulation and prediction (maybe using the existing Conjunction backend) of Lunar eclipses, and to create a tool to mark the trajectories of Solar and Lunar eclipse shadows on a map of the earth, including marking of totality, partial eclipse and annular eclipse. Something similar to this: [1]

Expected results: A complete set of tools to deal with eclipses.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++

Mentor: Akarsh Simha <akarsh DOT simha AT kdemail DOT net>

Project: KStars: Prettyfication

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE. The display is interactive, but it could be made more beautiful.

Brief explanation: We often get good suggestions for making KStars look better. Choose any of the following ideas: realistic rendering of asteroids and comets (including tails!); texture-mapping of the sky (this would mostly allow a photorealistic Milky Way); texture-mapping of planets; realistic sky-lighting effects (i.e., sky is blue in the daytime, gets gradually darker and colorful at sunset). One could also think of using Qt-GL rendering optionally.

Expected results: Successful implementation of any of these ideas to make KStars more beautiful.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: Required: C++.

Mentor: Akarsh Simha <akarsh DOT simha AT kdemail DOT net>

Project: Printable star charts

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE. It already has a print feature, but the printed chart could be much better.

Brief explanation: A printed star chart should at least include a legend explaining the symbols, and provide some information on the location of the user, the time and date, etc. The user would ideally be able to annotate the chart in various ways.

Project: Many Moons

Project Information: KStars is a desktop planetarium program for KDE. It currently includes Earth's moon and 4 of Jupiter's moons.

Brief explanation: Generalize the JupiterMoons class to encapsulate any planet's Moons. The project will require some research to identify a public source of orbital data for planetary moons, most likely from a NASA webpage.

Expected results: Implement moons for at least Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto with the new system.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: Required: C++. The project doesn't require much contact with Qt/KDE APIs, and the existing JupiterMoons class can be used as a template.

Mentor: Akarsh Simha <akarsh DOT simha AT kdemail DOT net>

Project: Support many catalogs

Project Information: KStars is a Desktop Planetarium for KDE. Currently KStars loads some star catalogs that are made available in a KStars native format.

Brief Explanation: KStars currently loads Tycho-2 and parts of USNO NOMAD catalog of stars. These catalogs are required to be in KStars' native format which uses the Hirearcheal Triangular Mesh to index regions in the sky. Popular star catalogs like USNO A organize stars and divide the sky into regions differently. Most users of astronomy software typically have one of these popular catalogs downloaded, and it would be great if KStars could support them somehow. While ability to read the non-native catalogs straight off is desirable, tools to convert these catalogs into KStars' native format would also help.

Expected Results: Implement support for at least the most popular catalogs like USNO-A2.0, Stellarium's Extra catalog, Cartes du Ciel's Tycho and Tycho-2 catalogs.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: Required: C++. Ability to read documentation and quickly understand the existing code and ability to deal with binary files will help.

Kalzium

Project: Strigi integration

Project Information:
The goal of this project is to integrate Strigi as backend behind the periodic table and the glossary (and possible other elements).

Brief explanation:
The idea here is to have a GUI element that shows Strigi search results based on the element selected from the periodic table, or the item from the glossary, found on the users desktop. For element, this would include the elements name, and possible even the element symbol, if integration with last years Strigi-Chemistry GSoC project is achieved. For glossary items, a simple text search would suffice.

Another idea is to make it possible to querry like this: "Give me all molecules with a molecularweigth of 123u and at least one Carbon atom". For this we can use the Chemical File Database (or of course every other database, even those for proteins.

Expected results:

provide GUI for Strigi search results for an element selected in the periodic table

provide GUI for Strigi search results for an glossary item

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: Required: C++, DBUS. Could be useful: Qt.

Mentor: Undecided.

Project: Kalzium beautification

Project Information:
Many parts of Kalzium could need a fresh up of the interface. For example, the main table should be written using Qt Model/View technique and for example use SVGs as a background. A first (uncomplete but working) code is already existing.

At the same time, many dialogs are not as beautiful as they could be. This project could also include the creation of a "simplified Kalzium" mode in which some parts of the feature set are hidden; this would be good for schools.

A third idea is to make more use of Plasma, for example improve the already written Plasmoids and/or extent Kalzium so that a Plasmoid could open a information dialog using Kalzium.

Expected results:
Depending on the chosen project for example a cleaned up codebase with an improved interface.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: Required: C++, Qt, possible Plasma, Debug.

Mentor: Carsten Niehaus

KOffice

Project: support for versionned OpenDocument files.

Explanation: The OpenDocument specification doesn't include support for multiple versions of the same document in a single file. But that feature is supported by OpenOffice.org. The objective for this Summer of Code is to add support for that versionning system in KOffice. Since KOffice shares the OpenDocument loading/saving code, it should be possible to add this support in every KOffice application in one Summer of Code.

Expected results: Being able to load a specific version of a file, and create/manage versions

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++, excellent english reading skills.

KWord

KPresenter

Project: Powerpoint import.

Explanation: From some years ago another gSoc project implemented the basis for powerpoint import, but it was never finished. So there is a good basis to start from. From a quick look it seems like styles support is the thing missing most to complete the work, however a thorough analysis of what is there and what is not needs to be done. And then the actual work needs to be done too, obviously

Krita

Project: Sketch-pad interface for Krita

Project Information: Krita is a large and complex application built around a sophisticated painting engine. The goal of this project is to create a new interface around the Krita engine, specialized for quick sketching.

Expected results: This project should implement a new interface around Krita, presenting the user a single-layer plus tracing paper interface with a single freehand sketching tool. Easy to use and graphic color and paint operation (brush, pencil, eraser etc.) interface elements must be designed and implemented.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++

Project: Shader filters and generators for Krita

Project Information: Some initial work has already been done to make it possible to write filters in the OpenGL shading language. This project should take that initial code as a basis and implement a fully functioning plugin for Krita that allows filters and shaders to be executed on images in any colorspace.

Expected results: The plugin should have a finished user interface and make it possible to experiment with shader filters in an interactive way. Example filters must be implemented.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++, OpenGL.

Project: Animation support

Project Information: There is no support at all in Krita for animated images such as GIF or MNG or for working with images in an animation context, such as textures or backgrounds in applications like Blender. The applicant should first investigate user needs and use cases and then implement support in the user interface and in the import/export filters.

Expected results: A user-friendly way of working with animated images (i.e., not by making each frame a layer), but e.g. a docker that shows the the animation running in thumbnail format. Import/export filters for relevant file formats.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++

Project: PSD and Gimp plugins

Project Information: Krita is powerful enough to handle nearly all that the Gimp and Photoshop are capable of saving. This project is about creating dedicated file import/export filters that can handle as much of these file formats as possible, possibly through the use of existing libraries.

Expected results: 4 plugins: psd import/export and xcf import/export. These plugins should be able to handle complex files in all supported colorspaces. Ideally the project would also deliver a library to convert PSD/XF to/from Open Raster files.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++

Project: Workspaces

Project Information: A workspace is a loadable package of settings that finetune Krita for a particular purpose. A workspace could contain additional plugins (like an image browser plugin for batch operations) and a subset of resources. Example workspaces could be batch-editing of images, editing of animation sequences or painting or sketching.

Expected results: the user interface and framework to make packages of plugins and resources that users can switch between. Also extra plugins to extend krita in areas like batch processing that do not exist yet.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++, artistic workflow

Project: Kipi and digikam plugins compatibility

Project Information: Kipi and digikam provide lots of interesting plugins for working with 8 and 16 bit RGBA images. It would be great to be able to re-use those plugins from within Krita.

Expected results: Two plugins that load kipi and digikam filters into two new menus in the filter menu. Code to convert Krita layers to the digikam image representation and back, taking care of icc profiles and other niceties.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++, artistic workflow

KDE PIM

KDE PIM is the interest group working on applications related to personal information management, e.g. contacts, calendar, mails, etc.

One of the current challenges is utilizing the new cross-desktop PIM infrastructure called Akonadi.

There are interesting projects on all levels of the software stack: libraries, application porting, new applications, access to online resources, etc.

Project: Akonadi Janitor Agent

Brief explanation:
An Akonadi Agent is a service process for performing tasks on data provided through the Akonadi server.

The task of a Janitor agent would be to keep the user's PIM data neatly organized, for example deleting news feed items which are above a certain age and not flagged, moving last week's mail to an archive, etc.

Expected results:

An Akonadi Agent capable of managing actions on Akonadi collections triggered by various criteria

At least fully working implementation of actions based on "Expire" criterias for mail, e.g. delete mail above certain age, move/copy to different collection, etc

GUI for configuring actions and their trigger criteria.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Ideally would already have gone through the Akonadi Resource Tutorial since Resources are a specialized form of agents and thus share some of the API and characteristics.

Mentor: Kevin Krammer (kevin dot krammer at gmx dot at)

Project: Alternative Akonadi Client Library

Brief explanation:
Akonadi has a server/client like architecture where clients such as applications (but also resource) connect to a service and communicate with it through a suitable protocol.

Currently this is implemented for KDE in library called libakonadi-kde, however it is desirable to have additional implementations to be suitable for other library stacks, e.g. GLib/GObject based ones.

Knowledge Prerequisite: Depends on the chosen language and toolstack, e.g. C/Vala and GLib/GObject knowledge for a GLib/GObject based implementation.

Mentor:

Project: Akonadi Consistency Checker

Brief explanation:
Akonadi provides a structure of collections and items, similar to folders and files of a filesystem. Similarly the internal structures have to follow certain constraints which must not be violated. Nevertheless, this can happen as result of bugs, hardware failures, power loss and a million other reasons.

Filesystem checks exist to detect and possibly fix such situations. Such functionality would also be desirable for Akonadi.

Expected results:

A consistency checker (built into the Akonadi server or stand-alone) that performs an extensible set of checks on the internal data structures of the Akonadi server, such as:

items belong to existing collections

collections are child collections of existing collections

the collection tree is non-cyclic

every collections is owned by an existing resource

collection sub-trees are owned by the same resource

every item payload part belongs to an existing item

content type constraints of collections are not violated

...

each check should be accompanied with recovery code, such as moving orphaned items into a lost+found folder

Project: Akonadi Resource for KMail local folders

Brief explanation:
KMail stores its mail in a folder hierachy where each folder can contain mails and further sub folders.

While mails are stored either as mbox or maildir, additional index files are used to speed up message listing and to store message status and flags.

The already existing Akonadi MailDir resource can handle the maildir aspects but cannot handle either mbox based folders nor the additional information stored in the index files.

Expected results:

a set of classes, probably as a library, capable of

recursively listing the KMail folder tree given a base directory

reading mails from the mbox and maildir folders in the KMail folder tree

reading KMail index files

an Akonadi resource using these classes to provide read-only access to all mails currently handled by KMail. The resource should also be able to transfer the flags stored in KMail's index file to Akonadi.

Writing a migrator, similar to the current KResource->Akonadi migrator, that automatically reads the KMail config file and creates a Akonadi resource out of it. Optionally, depending on the overall progress, the migrator would also convert some of KMail's folder settings, like the folder icon or the expiry settings, to Akonadi collection attributes.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt mandatory, code analysis skills would be helpful regarding the handling of index files, refactoring skills if KMail's classes are to be extracted from KMail's code base (not required).

Mentor: Thomas McGuire <mcguire at kde dot org>

KDE on Windows

Solid API backend

Brief explanation:
The porting efforts to make KDE available across platforms do need some backends for system dependent tasks. One of the KDE libraries that bundles this is Solid.

Expected results:
You implement a backend for the Solid API using WINAPI.
It has to work with both MinGW and MSVC compilers. Not every function is required, but the basic functionality (network access, removable drives/harddisks and power) should be implemented.

Knowledge Prerequisite: Windows API and C++/Qt. You should be able to set up the development environment yourself and be familiar with it.

KDE Games

Project: Kolf 2 landscape object

Brief explanation:
Kolf 2 is the second incarnation of KDE's minigolf game. We are currently rewriting it from scratch to take advantage of the powerful technologies provided by Qt 4 and KDE 4.

Expected results:
The task in this project is to create an object (or multiple objects) that provide(s) landscape textures, slopes, puddles and sand bunkers.

If you finish this task before the end of the summer, you can fill the remaining time by porting as much game objects from Kolf 1 to Kolf 2 as possible (e.g. windmills, floating blocks, signs or bumpers).

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++/Qt. Experiences in graphics programming with Qt will definitely help, as you are expected to implement 2D rendering for the landscape object.

Project: Kolf 2 editor interface

Brief explanation:
The minigolf game Kolf provided an editor interface from the beginning, to allow the users to create custom courses. For Kolf 2, we are rewriting the game engine and can therefore not use the old editor code.

Expected results:
Your task would be to create an editor interface (may be embedded in the game, or a standalone application). A few basic parts are available, and the Kolf 2 engine supports generic methods to provide data to editor interfaces, and display editor overlays on the game view.

If you finish the editor interface before the end of the summer, you can fill the remaining time by porting as much game objects from Kolf 1 to Kolf 2 as possible (e.g. windmills, floating blocks, signs or bumpers).

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++/Qt. Experiences in model/view programming with Qt will be of good use.

Solid

Project: UPnP support through Jolie

Brief explanation:
Adding UPnP support to Solid would mean offering transparent UPnP support to every KDE application using the Solid API, keeping them clean from every UPnP implementation aspect.
At the present, the Jolie language is being integrated with Plasma by means of the QtSodep library, soon to offer higher levels of abstraction.

The aim of this project would be to implement a UPnP protocol for Jolie, so that Solid could re-use the integration being made with QtSodep and gain UPnP support without having to worry about implementation details. Having a UPnP protocol implementation in Jolie would have other considerable consequences, like the possibility to act easily as a UPnP server or to compose and export existing UPnP services.

Expected results:

The creation of a "upnp" protocol in Jolie, supporting at least the Internet Gateway Device (IGD) and MediaServer profiles.

The creation of a UPnP Jolie service for UPnP service discovery and monitoring.

Extending libsolid to expose UPnP devices found on the network.

Material Prerequisite: Having UPnP devices or software applications to test with. Most home routers support IGD, and there exists free software supporting the MediaServer profile (mediatomb).

Knowledge Prerequisite: Understanding of the UPnP specifications, Java (for the development of the Jolie UPnP protocol) and basic knowledge of the Jolie language.

KWin

Project: Window tabbing

Brief explanation:
Window tabbing is a feature that allows you to group multiple application windows together to cover the same space. It is identical to what is already available in any modern web browser except it applies the the window as a whole. Window managers that have this feature available include Fluxbox and Ion. This feature was originally requested in 2002.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Understanding of the X window system and Xlib is a benefit but not required.

Mentors: Lucas Murray (lmurray undefinedfire com)

Project: Window tiling

Brief explanation:
Window tiling is a technique of displaying application windows side-by-side without overlap. The position, size and layout of the windows can either be specified by the user or determined automatically to best fit the screen. Examples of existing tiling window managers include Awesome, XMonad, Ion and Ratpoison. One of the main advantages of tiling is that is makes application windows easy to navigate solely by the keyboard. This feature was originally requested in 2003.

Expected results:

Users should be able tile existing floating windows on-the-fly with simple keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures.

It should also be possible to run the entire desktop environment entirely in tiled mode (Enabled by configuration settings). In this mode new window would be added to the tiling grid by default yet can be removed by the user if required.

The final tiling system should not interfere in any way with the existing floating window management.

Knowledge Prerequisite: C++ and Qt. Understanding of the X window system and Xlib is a benefit but not required.

Mentors: Lucas Murray (lmurray undefinedfire com)

digiKam

Project: High Dynamic Range (HDR) plugin

Project Information: digiKam is an advanced digital photo management application for KDE, which makes importing and organizing digital photos a "snap". The photos are organized in albums which can be sorted chronologically, by folder layout or by custom collections. digiKam has an Image Editor which has its own plugin subsystem with some common tools e.g. red eye correction or Gamma correction. Additional plugins are provided with the main application to process advanced corrections on image like color management, noise reduction, or special effects. digiKam image editor support 16 bits color depth image internally. The goal of this project is to create a new plugin dedicated to create HDR image.

Expected results: This project should implement an HDR tool will mix two or more (nearly) identical images having different exposure into a new image representing a wider dynamic range, which is closer to human perception of a photographic scene. Tone-mapping method must be used to create HDR images. An open-source implementation is already available at this url and can be re-used as well. There is an old feature request.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++/Qt.

Mentors: Gilles Caulier (caulier dot gilles at gmail dot com)

KDE Telepathy Integration

The Telepathy Framework is a desktop independent framework for real-time communication, such as VoIP and Instant Messaging. The projects below are some ideas for integrating telepathy into KDE.

If you want to know any more about Telepathy and KDE, drop by the irc channel #decibel and talk to grundleborg, or use the mailing list decibel AT kde DOT org.

Project: Message Logging

Project Information: The Telepathy Framework allows for components which can watch channels whilst a user is interacting with them through another application. A program could be created to log the content of text instant messages into an Akonadi collection.

Expected results: This project should result in a telepathy watcher which is capable of logging the contents of text chats into an Akonadi collection. It should be possible to go off-the-record in a particular conversation from telepathy user interfaces and the logger should not save any messages in this situation. This project might also include modifying the Kopete logging plugin to use the same akonadi collection for logs, and making a migration tool from Kopete's old logging format to the new Akonadi collection.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++/Qt, some basic knowledge of the Telepathy Framework is an advantage, but not necessary if you have an interest in real-time communcation and are prepared to learn fast.

Project: Telepathy Integration to any KDE application

Expected results: This project should result in a collaborative feature or instant messaging integration being added to the chosen KDE application. It should be complete enough to provide at least basic functionality to end users, with the possibility of further improvement after the summer of code period ends.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++/Qt, some basic knowledge of the Telepathy Framework is an advantage, but not necessary if you have an interest in real-time communcation and are prepared to learn fast.

Mentors: George Goldberg (grundleborg at gmail dot com) IRC: grundleborg. You should also discuss your idea with the development team of the application in which you would like to provide a Telepathy feature.

Project: Telepathy Plasma Integration

Expected results: You should provide multiple points of integration between presence and contact information and plasma. Plasmoids allowing the display and manipulation of your own presence information should be made available, building on the plasma applets and datengines already in existance for presence information. Plasma activities could also be made aware of presence, and the contacts plasmoid could be made aware of your buddies from Telepathy instant messaging accounts.

Knowledge Pre-Requisite: C++/Qt

Mentors: George Goldberg (grundleborg at gmail dot com) IRC: grundleborg. You should also discuss your ideas with the plasma development team before making a proposal.